‘Anne must have sent for the little princess,’ Lady Rochford says, ‘because then a nurse heaved up with her, and Anne snatched her and held her up, as if to say, “Husband, how can you doubt this is your daughter?”’

‘You are supposing that was his question. You could not hear what was said.’ His voice is cold; he hears it himself, its coldness surprises him.

‘Not from where I stood. But I doubt it bodes any good to her.’

‘Did you not go to her, to comfort her? She being your mistress?’

‘No. I went looking for you.’ She checks herself, her tone suddenly sobered. ‘We – her women – we want to speak out and save ourselves. We are afraid she is not honest and that we will be blamed for concealing it.’

‘In the summer,’ he says, ‘not last summer but the one before, you said to me that you believed the queen was desperate to get a child, and was afraid the king could not give her one. You said he could not satisfy the queen. Will you repeat it now?’

‘I’m surprised you don’t have a note of our talk.’

‘It was a long talk, and – with respect to you, my lady – more full of hints than particulars. I want to know what you would stand to, if you were to be put on oath before a court.’

‘Who is to be tried?’

‘That is what I am hoping to determine. With your kind help.’

He hears these phrases flow out of him. With your kind help. Yourself not offended. Saving his Majesty.

‘You know it has come out about Norris and Weston,’ she says. ‘How they have declared their love for her. They are not the only ones.’

‘You do not take it as just a form of courtesy?’

‘For courtesy, you do not sneak around in the dark. On and off barges. Slipping through gates by torchlight. Bribes to the porters. It has been happening these two years and more. You cannot know who you have seen, where and when. You would be sharp if you could catch any of them.’ She pauses, to be sure she has his attention. ‘Let us say the court is at Greenwich. You see a certain gentleman, one who waits on the king. And you suppose his tour of duty is over, and you imagine him to be in the country; but then you are about your own duties with the queen, and you see him whisking around the corner. You think, why are you here? Norris, is that you? Many a time I have thought some one of them is at Westminster, and then I spy him at Richmond. Or he is supposed to be at Greenwich, and there he is at Hampton Court.’

‘If they change their duties among themselves, it is no matter.’

‘But I do not mean that. It is not the times, Master Secretary. It is the places. It is the queen’s gallery, it is her antechamber, it is her threshold, and sometimes the garden stair, or a little gate left unlocked by some inadvertence.’ She leans forward, and her fingertips brush his hand as it lies on his papers. ‘I mean they come and go by night. And if anyone enquires why they should be there, they say they are on a private message from the king, they cannot say to whom.’